As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Sunday, 19 March 2017

Foie Gras Production Has Been Banned in the ‘Capital of Europe’

Good news! Foie gras production
has been banned in the Brussels-Capital Region.

As the home to many European Union
institutions, Brussels is setting a precedent for the demise of this hideously
cruel industry with this move. With regard to the ban, Brussels’ Minister for
Animal Welfare said, “[Foie gras production] is truly a kind of torture imposed
on ducks, and we can hardly tolerate it”.

It’s hard to imagine anything
more unethical than the foie gras industry, in which workers shove long metal
tubes down ducks’ and geese’s throats in order to pump large quantities of
grain into their stomachs several times a day. This causes their livers to
swell to up to 10 times their normal size, and when they’re eventually
slaughtered, the fatty, diseased organs are sold as foie gras.

Not only do birds endure the
agony of force-feeding, they also live in squalid, cramped conditions. As their
livers swell in the final weeks of their lives and press against their lungs,
they struggle even to breathe. PETA’s eyewitness investigation of the industry helped show the
public how cruel foie gras production really is.

It’s a huge step forward for
Brussels – known unofficially as the “Capital of Europe” – to take a stand
against this abusive industry, and PETA has written to Belgium’s Minister for
Agriculture to urge him now to ban production across the country. Belgium is
one of five European countries – alongside Bulgaria, France, Hungary, and Spain
– still producing foie gras. Part of PETA’s letter reads as follows:

Foie gras production is illegal
in the UK and more than a dozen other European countries – including Germany,
Luxembourg, and the Netherlands – and more and more countries around the world
are outlawing the cruel practice of force-feeding birds. It’s high time that
Belgium followed suit.